My Dearest Enemy

by Connie Brockway

  And, truth be told, she did not know if she could live with him knowing that the potential for those children existed, but was never realized. For the first time, she questioned her mother’s choice, looked at it coolly, as an adult, examining her motives objectively, and not as her mother’s companion in a life of remorse.

  She still understood her mother’s choices. She just wasn’t as sure as she’d been yesterday that she agreed with them. And wasn’t that simply a convenience to give her permission to do what she wanted to do? Marry Avery Thorne?

  She didn’t know, God help her, she didn’t know. She had only her past to guide her and right now that seemed a very suspect guide indeed. Alas, the only one she had.

  And he was leaving. Perhaps forever.

  Lily lowered her head into her arms and when her tears began, they flowed like an ocean of regret.

  With the only carriage being in Cleave Cross, Avery chose to walk to Little Hentley. Merry, her brows rising like gulls on an updraft, offered to send his valise and trunk later on her brother’s wagon. He accepted, thanking her before going in search of Lily.

  He found her in the library, bent over the ever-present ledger. He reached up and knocked on the lintel. She lifted her head. He could not stand to see her so hurt and know that there was nothing he could do to alleviate it; that, in fact, he was the source of her pain.

  “I’m going now,” he said, stopping just inside the doorway.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be at the Hound and Hare in Little Hentley for a few days should it be necessary to reach me.”

  “Yes.” She studied him carefully. “What would you like me to say to Evelyn?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Whatever you’d like. Tell her my wanderlust is once more in ascendance.” His gaze touched the thick ledger opened near the last page, reminding him of their relationship as contenders for Mill House; he as victor, she as loser. He did not feel like a survivor, much less a victor. “I expect I’ll see you at Gilchrist and Goode next month.”

  “Where?” she asked, momentarily distracted from her wary pose.

  “At Horatio’s solicitors. The end of your ‘test’ is near, remember?”

  “Oh.” She scanned his face for some sign of the man whose muscular arms had held her buoyed above him as he thrust deep within her body and saw a man clinging to the frayed edges of self-control.

  “In London, then. I bid you good day—”

  “No,” she said, panicked by the thought. “I don’t think we will meet in London.”

  He raised one dark brow askance.

  “There’s no reason for me to go there. I’ve lost the challenge and I certainly have no plans to make a public statement disclaiming my association with the suffragists.”

  “Of course not.” His smile was desperately unhappy. “Now, if you’ll pardon me?” His bow was perfectly courteous, a gentleman’s bow, as if he were taking leave of a stranger.

  He turned, preparing to walk away from her forever.

  “Wait!”

  His back stiffened.

  “Bernard,” she blurted out. “What about Bernard? He’ll wonder … would you have me tell him, too, whatever I like?”

  It looked to her as though he took a deep breath but when he faced her, his expression was composed. “I’d forgotten about the boy,” he murmured.

  In the habit with which she was well-acquainted, he withdrew his gold timepiece from his pocket. Idly, he snapped the lid open and shut with the rim of his thumbnail, his brow lowered in concentration.

  Watching him carefully consider the best way to deal with a sensitive boy, she felt her heart overflow with love and understanding.

  She blinked rapidly, fighting the threatened onset of tears. He looked up and saw the single escapee fall from a lower lash. He jerked forward, one involuntary step, before his jaw locked and his gaze went abruptly blank.

  “Send word to the inn when they come back,” he said. “I’ll stay until his return and then I’ll come and see him.”

  She bit down hard on her lips, nodding her understanding.

  “Lil—”

  She looked down, unable to look at him, so controlled—men always had control—accepting that which threatened to rend her life apart. Oh, he was undoubtedly very sorry for what had occurred and yes, he’d warned her even last night that this morning would bring recriminations. But he hadn’t told her they’d tear her apart, that he’d survive and she—

  She would not … she would not give in to it. She would be as strong as he.

  “Yes,” she said. “I will tell him.”

  When she looked up, he’d gone.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Mill House’s drawing room and antechambers were empty, its hallways hollow. A messenger had arrived with a letter from Evelyn stating her intention to remain in Cleave Cross with Bernard and Polly Makepeace through the weekend.

  With Lily’s appetite destroyed and no one else to cook for, Mrs. Kettle had abandoned the kitchen. The only other occupants of the huge old house, Merry and Kathy, settled into Teresa’s room to coo over babies and compare bellies. They treated Lily with kindly contempt, a society of expectant motherhood from which she was excluded.

  Harrowed by memory, counting down each hour to her last in Mill House, Lily fell to cleaning. She spent hours rubbing brass and scrubbing marble mandes, polishing windows and buffing woodwork until even the fragrance of Francesca’s sweet-scented sachets faded. Only the scent of Avery’s tobacco clung to the library curtains. Lily avoided the place, as she avoided the third floor of the house, and the sitting room, the mill pond, and—

  It was just as well she had lost Mill House. In just the space of three weeks he had made it his. The house which over the course of five years had become her home was suddenly a prison, sleep an exhaustion, memory a torment.

  With the house as vacant and pristine as a waiting sarcophagus, she then started putting her guardianship in order. She began in the early morning and was still at it by late afternoon. She’d seen to the maids’ futures by writing letters of recommendation and character references, noting names of people who would help them find employment, and organizations that might see them placed. Finally, she’d begun writing a note to Avery, pleading with him to keep her horses. For her sake, she knew he would.

  She’d almost finished when Kathy appeared, panting and wide-eyed. “Gentleman to see you, Miss Bede.”

  Avery? She half rose and caught herself. No. Kathy would have said as much. Indeed, had it been Avery, he’d have appeared without announcement, probably carrying Kathy. “If it’s a tradesman, Kathy, tell him I’ve no need for him.”

  “Ain’t a tradesman. A gentleman, I said and a gentleman I meant. And a foreign gentleman, at that.”

  “Foreign?”

  “Aye. Dark, slim chap with a great hat and an odd way of speech and what’s more he come to see you specific like. ‘Miss Bede, please,’ he says. So, I put him in the sitting room.”

  “Very well,” Lily said dully and setting her pen down beside her letter, followed Kathy to the sitting room.

  A slender young man rose as she entered, his tall, oddly shaped hat clenched in one dark fist. A huge grin split his darkly tanned face. He swept forward in a deep, courtly bow and when he rose his brown eyes sparkled.

  “Lillian Bede!” He eyed her with evident gratification. “I am delighted, positively delighted, to make your acquaintance.”

  Why, the fellow was an American. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, sir,” she said.

  He laughed, a deep rumbling sound. “Forgive me, Miss Bede. You’ll think me a mannerless cur, indeed. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m John Neigl.”

  Seeing the name offered no illumination, he went on. “I had the honor, well, sometimes it was an honor.” His kind eyes sparkled even brighter, inviting her to share his amusement. “Sometimes it was just dam—er, darned fortunate, and on occasion a right ordeal, to be Avery Thorne’s companion for most
of the last five years.”

  Avery’s companion? She thought. Of course, he’d written about the American leader of their expedition who’d contracted malaria and later joined them on other ventures. Impulsively, she held out her hand, smiling warmly. He stepped forward and took it, pumping it up and down enthusiastically.

  “I arrived in England two days ago and I made immediately here. I simply had to meet the redoubtable, the one, the only Miss Lillian Bede.”

  Her smile faded and her brow puckered. Had the malaria affected the fellow’s mind? “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean exactly,” she said.

  She indicated the seat from which he’d risen. “Please. Won’t you be seated and Kathy,” she said sending a sharp look at the maid, who was fussing about with a feather duster in a patently ineffectual manner, “if you could get Mr. Neigl and me tea?”

  Kathy sent her a sour look, and with a little huff of annoyance flounced out of the room.

  “Avery tried to tell us you were a scarecrow with a mustache and an eye that could fry an egg, but I knew better. You’re exactly as I pictured,” John said, taking his seat and balancing his ten gallon hat on his knee. “I knew you’d be a beauty from your letters.”

  Her brows climbed even higher. “My letters?”

  “Avery didn’t tell you?” Again the unaffected laughter. “Just like him. He used to read us your letters, ma’am. Not every one of them, of course, but bits from here and there. He kept them, all of them, through every journey and every adventure. Sometimes when things got a mite rough”—his eyes flickered away and she knew that the roughness had been more than a “mite”—“Avery would read something you’d written, to sort of bolster us up.”

  She stared at him in shocked silence, unable to believe what she heard. Avery had kept all her letters? She’d kept his of course, but that was for Bernard—or so she’d told herself. She bit the inner lining of her cheek. She would not fall apart. John Neigl prattled happily on, unaware of the effect of his words.

  “Why, I remember once, in Brazil, when the guides had been run off by some hostiles and we were left to flounder about on our own for, oh Lord, at least a month.” The memory brought a flash of teeth. “I don’t mind admitting that we were pretty despondent, but Avery used your words to cheer us.

  “ ‘Here now, chaps,’ he said, ‘If Miss Bede does not worry about our welfare, why should you?’ At which someone, probably myself, asked why you were so stingy with your concern and to which Avery replied, ‘Why, and I quote Miss Bede, God takes care of fools and children thus, being men, you are double safeguarded against misadventure.’ ”

  Lily’s face flamed. John chuckled.

  “Another time we were in Turkey as guests of this nomadic prince. One of the chap’s sisters, an authentic princess mind you, developed a tendre for Avery. Actually wanted him to marry her. Surprised the hell out of us.” John grinned hugely.

  Lily in the process of feeling jealousy set torch to her heart, blinked at the man. “Why is that?”

  He blinked back, just as perplexed. “Come now,” he said. “In spite of his claims to be the picture of gentlemanly graces no one would ever mistake Old Avery for Oscar Wilde, would they? I mean, he’s witty as all hel—witty as can be but—”

  “He has very nice manners,” Lily cut in.

  “He has no manners at all!” John guffawed without a trace of malice. “Brusque, intolerant, as subtle as a club on the old noggin, that’s Avery Thorne.”

  She had no answer for this monumental piece of disloyalty and could only frown.

  “Anyway,” John went on, thoroughly unconcerned with Lily’s frown, “Avery would have none of the girl and when the prince asked him why, Avery said, ‘I am unsuitable husband material. I am childish and immature and irresponsible. I have it on the best authority, that being Miss Lillian Bede of Devon, England, that what I have defrauded the reading public into believing is an exploration of the world’s last unknown corners is in actuality nothing but a quest to find the world’s largest primate and then challenge him to a chest thumping contest.’ ”

  John burst into an unfettered laughter that lasted a full five minutes and finally ended with him wiping tears from his eyes. “You should have seen the prince’s face.”

  “Confused?” Lily asked coolly.

  “No!” John burst out. “That’s what’s so funny. He understood perfectly! He nodded very sagely, sighed, and said you sounded like his wife!”

  “I’m glad my words afforded so many so much amusement.”

  “Oh, they did. I assure you, they did!” He smiled brightly through tears of amusement. “It’s no wonder Avery loved your letters.”

  She froze.

  Kathy chose that moment to reappear, huffing under the weight of an elaborate silver tea service. John jumped up, took the heavy platter, and set it down on the table.

  “I can’t begin to tell you how much we anticipated the next salvo in your correspondence,” John said blithely. “I don’t know who was more eager for your letters, Avery or the rest of us.”

  “I’m sure—” she began, darting a glance at Kathy.

  “I am, too. Avery was.” His smile went from one of amusement to admiration. “It pleased us.”

  “You can leave, Kathy,” Lily said.

  “I’ll just open the windows here, it bein’ such a fine day—”

  “Leave, Kathy.”

  With another flounce, Kathy disappeared out of the door. As soon as she left, Lily stood up. “Mr. Neigl, I’m afraid you’ve made—”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’m not much better housebroken than Avery, am I?” he asked in chagrin. “Barreling in here and making free with your history and all, but I just feel I know you so well, like a member of the family. I owe Avery more than I can ever repay and more than that, I really like the big son-of-a—the big guy.”

  “I’d say that Avery Thorne is like my brother, but that would be a lie,” he continued, his tone for the first time sobering. “Avery Thorne is my leader. He has been from the start though I was the one who put the original party together. If I were one of your Scotsmen he’d be my laird. If I were an Indian, he’d be my chief. There’s no man I would rather be caught with in a rough patch; no man I’d sooner trust my life with and I have,” he assured her gravely, “a dozen times over. He never failed once. Though he thinks he did.”

  Her fingers plaited themselves restlessly together.

  “You saved his life there, you know,” John said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Karl’s death.” For a second his amiable expression disappeared in sadness. “Avery was killing himself with self-recrimination. Not that he said anything. No, then we might have been able to answer. He wouldn’t have burdened us like we burdened him.”

  He sighed as though still carrying the weight of his thoughts. “We shouldn’t have put so much on him, made him feel so responsible, but he made it so easy, you know?”

  She nodded mutely.

  “Always doing what needed to be done, always found a way—across a river, through the diplomatic uncertainties of hostile nations, whatever.

  “After Karl died … well, you could see it was eating at the man. He became silent and guarded. Hesitant in small matters, reckless in ones of personal safety. And then your letter came.” He reached over and patted her hand companionably. “Bless you. I don’t know what you said. He never read it aloud—nor did we ask him to—but for a while I’d see him reading it when he thought no one was about, after a particular bad bout or something occurred that would set the haunts in his eyes again. Your letter eased him, you know?”

  At her silence, John seemed to recall his manners, and that they were in fact, strangers. His dark face flushed and he twisted the brim of his hat in his hands. “I didn’t mean to come over all morose and such. This is a great day for me, finally meeting the woman who married Avery Thorne.”

  “What?” This new shock supplanted
the old.

  “Where is he anyway?” John asked. “Rechanneling a river? Man has more energy than is healthy.” He finally noticed her stunned expression, her agonized eyes. Immediately, he recognized his faux pas.

  “You aren’t married?”

  “No!” The word shot out, falling between them with all the grace of an ostrich in a dovecote. “We’re not.”

  “I am sorry,” he choked out, mortified. “It’s just … well, after the letters, I’d assumed. It seemed so obvious that you were both … courting. And when I got his address and realized it was the same as yours, I assumed. Well, it wouldn’t have been unlike Avery—or even what I knew of you—to run roughshod over the niceties and just get married! I’m sorry I’ve embarrassed you. Really,” he finished miserably.

  “It’s all right. You simply took me by surprise,” she said, her thoughts whirling around the honest mistake he’d made, perhaps because it hadn’t been a mistake. Those letters had been a courtship. “Mr. Thorne is at the Hound and Hare in Little Henty.”

  “I see.” John’s abashed gaze settled on his shoe tips. “Well, I’d best go find him then. Thank you for the tea and the pleasure of meeting you. You’re prettier than I could have imagined,” he said smiling, “and a lot quieter.”

  His smile faded. “Though that’s my fault, eh? I can’t say again how sorry I am to have prattled on like that, I—”

  “Really, it’s fine. Think nothing of it.”

  “Good day then, Miss Bede.” He stood up, slapped the huge hat against his thigh, and started for the door where he turned and gave her a little bow. When he straightened the self-assured grin was back in place, a devilish gleam had entered his eye. “Since you wouldn’t have Avery, Miss Bede, perhaps you might consider me?”

  It said much about Lily’s state of mind that she didn’t respond to this absurdity. Indeed, she might not have heard it all. “Good day, Mr. Neigl.”